As of 2022, 72% of the most successful companies use automation in their marketing.
Hiring a marketing automation agency is a great way to tap into the full potential of automation and join the ranks of major organizations that boost productivity and drive revenue using strategic automation.
But as with most external partners, sometimes, things don’t go as planned. Businesses need an agency that will listen to their needs, provide feedback and suggestions, and deliver marketing automation that aligns with their overall strategy. If you’re not seeing these qualities in your marketing automation agency, you might need to rethink your partnership.
Keep reading for 5 marketing automation agency red flags that should help you figure out if you hired the right agency!
Effective partnerships and campaigns start with the right goals. All business leaders should make sure to set smart goals for their company and align all their teams, both internal and external, so that everyone is working towards the same attainable goals.
When you hire a marketing automation agency, one of the first questions they should ask you is about your goals. Once they have a detailed look into what you hope to accomplish on both a wide and granular scale, they can create automation that is heavily influenced by those objectives.
What if they don’t ask about your goals? What if a marketing automation agency comes to your first meeting with their own fully-formed plan that didn’t take into account your company’s unique needs? Then your agency might have their own motives and be focused more on making a profit than helping you achieve your goals.
Your agency should always ask about your goals. Remember, if your goals change (which is natural!), then make sure to update your marketing automation agency so they can adjust strategies, workflows, campaigns, and more to align with your needs.
Marketing automation agencies service multiple clients, and employees are tasked with allotting the right amount of time for each client. Because of that, it’s unlikely that your agency will get back to your email or Slack within minutes every single time.
At the beginning of your arrangement, your agency should establish a primary person of contact (POC), a higher-up in the agency that you can escalate issues, and a standard timeframe for how long you can expect to wait to hear a response from them.
If your marketing automation agency doesn’t respond to a non-urgent matter within 24 hours, they might not have the bandwidth to be as responsive as you need. (Urgent matters, of course, should warrant a quicker response, though make sure to use urgency sparingly to avoid a “boy who cried wolf” effect.)
You should have reasonable expectations for responsiveness from your marketing automation agency, but if they ignore you for several days without a word and are not communicative, consider moving on from them.
Automation can't be done in a vacuum. It needs to have a clear strategy backing it, and that strategy should fit seamlessly into your greater growth marketing strategy.
If your goal is to drive revenue, for example, then your agency’s automation efforts need to be aligned with that goal. The automation strategy should also work in harmony with other marketing channel strategies.
For example, if your content marketing strategy involves sending emails to various segments of your database to engage contacts at a certain stage of the funnel, then automation should be used to segment contacts automatically, assign lead statuses, enter contacts into workflows, and more.
Each marketing effort is one piece of a larger puzzle and strategy, and the marketing automation strategy has to fit perfectly into that puzzle.
Make sure that when looking for an agency, you’re getting exactly what you need. If your company requires B2B automation, it’s important to work with an agency that specializes in B2B rather than B2C, because the two types of automation differ greatly!
B2B marketing automation, especially in the email realm, usually caters to a large audience with the intention of educating and nurturing. B2C automation is about the customer's journey and is more focused on personalized, relevant messages.
A marketing automation agency that specializes in B2C automation will not necessarily be able to map that over to effective B2B automation. Before you hire an agency, make sure they’ve helped clients as you succeed with automation.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are crucial to business success. You should work with your agency to set the right KPIs, and they should be sending periodic reports with real data, graphics and visuals, and more that showcase whether these metrics are being met.
If your marketing automation doesn’t update you on the progress of their efforts with tangible data, be sure to ask for it. Marketing agencies in general should always generate and send reports and be able to clearly explain what’s working, what isn’t, and how they’re attempting to improve their work.
Your marketing automation agency should help your scale and drive revenue through strategic automation. If they’re not able to deliver or communicate, then it’s worth reevaluating whether they’re the right agency for you.
Looking to work with a marketing automation agency that will work with your to achieve scalable results? Get in touch!